Looking to remove low boiling organic chemicals on the cheap? Here’s how, Dylan writes – “Take a stroll through our labs and you will notice a curious number of black Crock Pots serving as water baths for the rotovaps. They cost $20 and came from Wal Mart. When I first joined I thought this was a little ghetto-tastic, but having used the Crock Pots for a number of years now I can say they are perfectly fine. Why spend $1,000 on the fancy VWR digitally-controlled contraptions when a $20 solution works the same? Especially since we have 20-odd rotovaps, stuff like that adds up real fast.” – Link.

Wow, guaranteed explosion with this method. Organic solvent vapors going through a sparking motor with brushes in a shop vac, not to mention the open contact thermostat in the crock-pot. There is a reason rotavap baths are expensive, and there is a reason you use a water asperator with these. Morons.

lwatcdr

Not a guaranteed explosion.
If I remember a wet/dry shop vac motor is sealed or else it wouldn’t be allowed to be a wet/dry vac. Even it you got ignition a large flame is far more likely than an explosion.
Still not something I would do.

iamanangelchaser

The crock-pot water bath idea is clever, but fairly common. As for the “ghetto-vap” itself, for God’s sake don’t try it.IT IS NOT SAFE AND WILL NOT WORK.

talbotron22

Hi people – those are my blueprints. That was supposed to be a joke. Please for the love of God do NOT build this device. Guaranteed disaster. I guess if you are not an organic chemist it may not have been clear how absurd this device is… I thought the rotating tie rack would be a clue.

-Dylan

daniepeace

my next door neighbor in college shop vac’d the gas tank of the motorcycle he was working on in his bedroom. Even though it was late at night we were all summond to our lawns to watch the colorful flashing lights of the fire trucks and ambulance.
What an exciting way to build community.
No, he wasn’t seriously injured.
God handicaps for idots.

daniepeace

my next door neighbor in college shop vac’d the gas tank of the motorcycle he was working on in his bedroom. Even though it was late at night we were all summond to our lawns to watch the colorful flashing lights of the fire trucks and ambulance.
What an exciting way to build community.
No, he wasn’t seriously injured.
God handicaps for idots.

I thought the rotating tie rack was a genius use of a dumb christmas gift.

philliptorrone

i thought the tie rack and the whole “boiling organic chemicals” gave it away as a funny…

talbotron22

on the other hand, my soap-making instructions, which I saw posted here too, are rock solid. You could build a house on that.

-Dylan

just found this

No information is better than wrong information.

If you are joking, be cautious and obvious. Some meth lab operator will try this and the liability goes to the designer quickly. Your best move is to delete this whole thing and dead-end all links to it.

foreward

OMFG! DO NOT DO THIS! Before I even read the comments, I thought “explosion”. There is a reason you are not seeing an actual photograph of the product here. Because it does not exist, and even if it did at one time, it doesn’t now because it exploded.

This is a TERRIBLE idea. So bad I am wondering who is the more likely designer, an idiot stoner or the CIA trying to make drug production all the more dangerous.

This is a horrendous idea. Even if shop vacs are sealed on the INSIDE, they are not on the OUTSIDE and in any case are totally not designed for this type of application. They even warn you about vacuuming flammable liquids and in flammable environments.

If you are idiotic enough to actually do this, by all means make certain that you have a SHORT exhaust tube running from the vacuum to outdoors. That way when your annoying neighbor starts his car you blow him up instead.

Seriously, wtf is this?

Richard Kelly

Wow, scary! Not the crockpot, but the shop vac. An explosion waiting to happen!

mickey

Very cool. Do you rotate by hand?

Nathan Ponzar

Coupling a bicycle crank to the round bottom comes to mind. I am not very mechanically savvy, but it seems like there should be a way.